


To Catch A Thief

by Ultra



Category: Leverage
Genre: Backstory, Boredom, Canon Compliant, Day Off, Flashbacks, Gen, Heist, Memories, Minor Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford, Season/Series 01, Talking, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19004593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: Back when Nathan Ford worked for IYS, he almost caught every single member of the team he now runs, and one of them almost caught him too.





	To Catch A Thief

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for ms midwest as part of the Leverage Exchange 2012 on Livejournal.

It ought to be a good thing when Team Leverage got a day off, and it was. They got to rest, to heal, to relax for a while, with no-one making demands or needing favours. Of course, if there were two days off, everything changed.

The nature of their lives and ‘jobs’ made all five restless if they were forced to sit still too long. They tried to stay home and do their own thing but it didn’t take long for each and every one to find an excuse for heading back to the offices of Leverage Consulting & Assoc. Whether it was for the company or something else, no-one was sure and not one amongst them would admit it, but here they were, on a strangely cold and wet afternoon in LA, all hanging out together in a place they didn’t need to be.

All five started out in their own offices, trying to look some kind of busy, but that didn’t last for long. Parker ventured out into the conference room and found Hardison already there, his laptop display spread out across four parts of the six-part screen on the wall. The other two parts showed a music player and an equaliser, and music came not-quite loudly from the speakers in the corners.

The hacker glanced up from his work when the thief wandered in, offering her a smile which she barely returned. She seem to be in a world of her own as she wandered aimlessly around the the entire room. Unsurprisingly, Hardison didn’t notice Parker lift the speaker remote off the table, not until the volume increased ten-fold in his ears.

“Parker!” he called over the music that had now become a din, wondering when exactly she had climbed up onto the table to dance.

“What on Earth?” asked Sophie as she appeared from her office, Nate and Eliot were not far behind her.

“Damnit, Hardison!” complained the hitter as he stormed over, picking up there remote Parker had by then abandoned and turning the song off completely.

To his credit, the hacker didn’t try to shift blame. After all, it was pretty obvious who the real culprit was to anyone who cared to take a moment to think on it.

“Hey,” he called up to Parker, even as she continued to hum the tune she’d been listening to and danced on. “Hey, down off the table, Riff Regan!” he encouraged her, reaching for her arm.

“Parker!” said Nate in that tone only a father could conjure and before long the little thief’s feet were firmly back on the ground.

“It’s not my fault,” she grumbled. “I’m boooored,” she stretched the word out to three or four times its usual length, and Sophie couldn’t help but smile.

Parker was the world’s greatest thief, and that wasn’t even an understatement, and yet she could be such a child sometimes. Not that any of them were exactly proving how adult they could be, all hiding in their offices, just waiting for someone else to suggest they spend time together. It made sense for most people to enjoy being apart on their day off after spending so much time together, but they were different. Each of them was an individual, alone in the world in every way, except for this team. Though none would admit it, they needed each other, needed the company and the family atmosphere. They liked it now they had it, and couldn’t easily go back to being comfortable all alone.

“If you’re bored, go do something instead of hanging around here buggin’ everybody,” Eliot advised, not really as nasty as he might have been.

Parker poked out her tongue anyway, going so far as to duck behind Nate the next moment. They really were so childish sometimes.

“Yeah, and what exciting times you been havin’ in your office?” Hardison challenged the hitter, ever the one to defend Parker at a moments notice. “You’re just as bored as everybody else,” he insisted, and though Eliot opened his mouth to argue, he couldn’t find a way to do it, because the hacker was completey right.

“If we’re all so bored and lonely, why don’t we just give in and spend the afternoon together?” asked Sophie, the sensible mother of the team taking on her usual role. “We could order take out and... I don’t know, share tales of jobs past perhaps?” she suggested, looking at Nate.

He nodded his agreement.

“Sure, I’ll go get some drinks...” he offered, but the grifter’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“We’ll order soda with the meal,” she told him with a look that said now was not the time to be getting drunk!

Apparently, there was just no arguing with Sophie, and at least Hardison and Parker looked happy enough with the new arrangement. Nate was neutral to grumpy, as was his usual state lately, especially when he was denied a drink, and though Eliot grumbled about take-out being full of garbage and how they should be eating real food, he simmered down before long when the grifter let him pick a half-decent healthy restaurant to order from.

Parker was only too happy to start off a round of ‘the greatest job I ever pulled’. She told these stories with such detail and drama, it was like watching a movie, except the statistics took away from the effect a little, Sophie thought. It was amazing though, to add up all the tiny amounts of time and realise just how quickly and easily Parker could be in and out of a vault.

Around mouthfuls of food, Hardison told his story next, a heist for which he had never had to leave the comfort of his own room, all completed through the art of technology. Then the focus turned to Eliot and he shifted uncomfortably before painting on a smile and telling his tale. He was skipping things out and Sophie knew it better than anyone, though she said not a word. For a man so good with his fists and everything, he did not relish the violence he spoke of, and he skipped over a great deal of it.

Sophie thoroughly enjoyed telling her own tale, with all the theatrics of the actress she was at heart. Every member of the team felt they ought to applaud at the conclusion, it was such a performance, and Nate was smiling widely by the end. That expression visibly shifted and fell away as four pairs of eyes turned to stare at him.

“Come on, Nathan,” Parker prodded. “It’s your turn to tell a story.”

“Well, I’m not a thief,” he reminded them with a shrug. “I don’t have a best heist to tell you about”.

“No, but you have stories about running after folks like us,” Eliot reminded him. “Best catch is as good as best steal.” He shrugged.

“Or better yet,” said Hardison with a grin. “You chased all o’ us one time or another, give us the best chasing tale with one of us in it,” he suggested.

“It’s not like he ever caught any of us,” Parker huffed, missing the significant look that passed briefly between Sophie and Nate.

The mastermind’s attention was soon fully on Parker and he leaned in closer to her, speaking just above a whisper so all around the table heard anyway.

“I could’ve caught you,” he told her with a smirk that was almost too creepy.

Parker leaned back away from him, then turned to look at the others.

“He’s lying!” she said definitely. “He never almost caught me. Nobody ever caught me!” she insisted.

“Actually, I almost caught all of you, and I could’ve done it,” said Nate, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. “Yeah, now that I think about it, I let each one of you get away one time each.”

“Why would you do that?” asked Eliot, narrowing his eyes as he tried to figure out if this cat was for real or not.

“I had my reasons.” Nate shrugged.

“So tell us, man,” Hardison urged him. “Tell us how you maybe almost caught each one of us. If nothing else, we ain’t never heard the story from your side of the tracks.”

Nate took a moment to consider it and then smiled.

“Okay.” He nodded once. “Let’s start with Parker...”

.

Nathan Ford had been on the case of this particular little thief was six months now. Her name was Parker, and whether that was her first or last name, nobody could be sure. What was certain was that she was an expert thief, perhaps the best he ever heard of or saw, and yet she was barely twenty.

The young blonde had a penchant for diamonds as a rule, but had recently branched out into paintings, three of which had been insured by IYS. Following the pattern, Nate suspected she was gathering these pictures for a particular client, perhaps a fence with orders to fill, or just one person who was after a collection and wasn’t smart enough to get them him or herself. Either way, much research and study had brought Nate here, to Paris, on the opening day of a Vermeer exhibit. Parker was around, he was sure she had to be. This latest display of artwork included a fourth painting that had once been part of the same collection as the latest three she had taken. This had to be the final leg of her four-part crime, and if Nate could catch her, not only would he save his company the cost of an insurance pay out on its piece of expensive art work, but he might be able to get back the previous three as well if she had yet to pass them on.

Nate hadn’t been expecting Parker to take a detour on the way to the museum. He worried slightly that she was on to him, but changed his mind when she crossed down an alley and through a door he was sure he never would have spotted if it hadn’t been just closing as he got there. He caught the door with an inch to spare and hurried into the building behind the thief.

It was too dark to see where she had gone, clad in black as she was and the room the same colour throughout apparently. Then he heard her voice and panicked he had just stumbled into a trap. She could be meeting anyone here and suddenly Nate felt very foolish for being led into this. He was proven wrong again when he realised he could make out the words she was saying even as she sat high above him on a ledge he could only make out thanks to a skylight above that let in the moonlight from outside.

“It’s dangerous, Bunny,” the girl told either a real rabbit of a stuffed toy, the insurance man wasn’t entirely sure at such a range, “but this is the last part and then we can get away from him. He freaks me out, Bunny. I don’t know why we agreed to do this for a guy like Dax McKenna. Well, I guess it was for the cash.” She sighed heavily.

Nate was pretty sure he had stopped breathing when he heard Parker admit who she was working for. Dax McKenna was one of the worst criminals Nate had ever had the misfortune to hear about. He wasn’t strictly a thief since he never stole anything himself, he employed other thieves to do that work for him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just artworks and such that he liked to keep as trophies, if the stories were to be believed, he had a terrible reputation where young women were concerned too. If Parker failed in her mission, if Nate was the one to stop her and cause that to happen, he would never forgive himself. Sure, she was a thief but nobody deserved that fate.

Slipping out of the door and back out into the moonlit alley, Nate let out a breath he barely knew he’d been holding. His boss was going to yell at him for this, he knew that, but his own fate at the hands of Ian Blackpoole would be nothing compared to what he had saved Parker from. Never had he felt so good about letting the ‘bad guy’ get away.

.

“And that was the closest I ever came to catching the world’s most uncatchable thief,” Nate finished with a flourish, and Parker continued to gape at him, open-mouthed with shock.

“You almost got me!” she said indignantly, like it just wasn’t fair. “You really are a Mastermind,” she decided, still frowning.

“Thank you, Parker,” he replied with a nod, as he sipped his soda and wished it had a little more kick to it.

Nothing was said about the fact he may have saved her life or from a fate worse than death itself. Nate had kind of skipped over that when he told his tale and stuck to vagaries. It seemed safer somehow, though the look across the table from Eliot suggested he knew Dax McKenna’s reputation too. He only hoped his hitter never worked for a guy like that.

“Man, that was different,” said Hardison suddenly, getting everyone’s attention. “Physically catching a person is one thing. There ain’t no way you coulda caught me doin’ what I do,” he said definitely.

There was a general look of disbelief on everyone’s face after the tale they just heard about Parker, and Nate was surely about to prove just how close he had come to catching Alec Hardison red-handed, once upon a time.

“Nah, man.” The hacker looked indignant still as his eyes turned back to his boss. “Ain’t even possible you coulda caught me and let me get away.”

Nate didn’t say anything for a moment, just sipped his drink and smiled. All his crew were cocky at times, and none so much as Alec Hardison. His confidence was not unfounded, he really was that good, but he ought to remember that there was a reason why he wasn’t the leader of this team, why it was Nathan Ford they dubbed the ‘mastermind’.

“Do you want to hear the story or not?” he asked, a challenge perhaps more than a simple offer, and Hardison stuck out his chin as he replied.

“Yeah, I wanna here whatever fairytale you gonna make up,” he declared, arms folded across his chest, even as Sophie tried not to giggle and Eliot rolled his eyes.

“Tell us!” Parker insisted when ‘Dad’ was quiet too long.

Nate finally relented then and told his tale.

.

Nathan Ford was starting to learn more about technology. He wasn’t so very old and he didn’t live in the dark ages or anything, but the wonder of the Internet as it became more and more prevalent was certainly making his work more interesting in some ways and more daunting in others. No longer was it as simple as keeping actual works of art and such safe in a physical sense, there was virtual goods and money to keep watch over too.

IYS were in charge of insuring an item for the entirety of its ownership by a client, and that included while it was being auctioned off. Though they held a real auction in a secure room, with the prized possessions properly guarded, nobody could really be sure that those bidding would pay for what they wanted. With phone bidders and online bidders, duping the auction house became more and more simple, if you knew how to handle the technology.

There had been three thefts from high-price auctions in the past month, all paintings, and all via online means. With the prize lot in this latest auction out of Chicago being worth so much and insured by IYS, it was up to Nate to ensure that this hacker, whoever he or she was, did not strike again.

Of course, he was no computer whiz himself, but Nate was assigned a team of experts to crack the codes and find the culprit. They had no name as yet, just a shortlist of likely suspects and their online handles. There was one they called Chaos, another simply known as Hardison, plus a handful more who were eliminated one by one til just the first two remained.

It was the early hours of the morning, the day of the auction, and Nate sat alone in his office, going over and over the facts and figures given to him by the computer guys, as well as the information gathered on his two likely suspects. No matter which way he sliced it, this Chaos person didn’t seem to fit the profile. It was all a little simple and small fry for this guy. It seemed he usually went for the team job and the bigger pay out, this just wasn’t his style. Hardison was what you might call an up and comer, a new boy in town, but by no means unskilled. It just might be that he was the guy.

It took a serious amount of searching through files, watching and waiting for signals to show themselves, and then suddenly it happened.

“Gotcha!” Nate declared as a photograph appeared on the screen and all the data that he needed to nail this Hardison person.

Apparently that was his last name. His first name was Alec, and he had been in the system most of his life. The grin on Nate’s face started to falter as he read on, realising that whilst the right amounts of money had gone into Hardison’s well-hidden account to prove he had committed this crime, that cash had gone straight back out again within 24 hours every time. Sure, it could have been bounced from one account to another, but that was not what the records showed as the path was followed and threw up the truth, right in Nate’s face.

Medical bills. That was what the money was for, and if he wasn’t mistaken, those bills belonged to Hardison’s foster mother who had been suffering ill health on and off for months now. A lump formed in Nate’s throat and would not shift. If he took this guy away, had him locked up, made that family pay back what they’d taken, would he be doing a good thing? Or would be let an old, sick woman die of a broken heart?

By the time the tech boys rolled in that morning, the office was a wreck and Nate was nursing a supposed knock on the head. He told them he fended off the thieves as best he could, and they hadn’t taken anything, but the equipment was ruined and there was no time to re-set before the auction. The case was a dead loss, and the bosses accepted that this time they had just suffered back luck. Only Nate knew the truth of the matter, and he wasn’t saying a word.

.

“As soon as I knew what you needed the money for... let’s just say it hit a sore spot,” said Nate, clearing his throat. “Sam had started to... to need extra care and tests then. I understood.” He shrugged, almost wishing he never started this now.

He gave up completely on the soda at this point and was glad Sophie didn’t make a fuss when he got up and retrieved the bottle of scotch from the cabinet in the corner. She knew he needed this, she had to.

Hardison was frowning hard now Nate’s story was done. He remembered the occasion, and he remembered it well. There was more than one time when his family needed cash, and more than once it was his Nana’s medical bills that simply had to be paid.

In high school, he found a way through the firewall of an Icelandic bank and secured funds that way - he never was caught. Another time, a couple of years later, was when he pulled the job Nate had talked about. He often wondered how he hadn’t been caught out on that one, slick as he was. Nathan Ford was a legend and when he realised he’d be screwing IYS with his plan, he knew he was asking for trouble. Now he realised it was no miracle he hadn’t been caught but the kindness of a man that owed a thief like him nothing.

“You seriously let me get away,” he said with apparent astonishment.

“I did.” Nate nodded as he returned to his seat with not just a shot of scotch in his glass but the bottle held tight in his other hand. “Just that one time. I was the good guy, remember?”

“You still are,” Sophie insisted, her meaning coming through on so many more levels than just the obvious. “These days I suppose we all are, in the greater sense.” She shrugged.

Their work was still illegal in many ways, but they were working on the right side morally, and surely that had to matter more than the law that never quite helped everyone that it should.

“It’s not like any of us were that bad anyway,” Parker pointed out. “We’re just thieves,” she reminded them. “There are people that do way worse things than steal paintings and money from gazillionaires and stuff. Y’know, people that actually hurt other people and...”

The blonde hadn’t noticed Eliot start to squirm in his seat when the topic of good vs. bad came up. Sure, he was a thief too, but he had hurt people. He had done far worse things than this team could ever know, and he hoped they never found out the extent of the damage he had cause in his life. It was a moment before Sophie asked Parker to let it go that he was up from his seat and muttering as he turned to walk away.

“Hey, Eliot!” Hardison called after him, determined for the hitter not to be mad and break up the party. “She didn’t mean you, man,” he insisted just as soon as Eliot glanced back over his shoulder.

“Noooo! Not you!” Parker added fast, having not even realised what she had done wrong until that moment. “Worse guys than you. Not that you’re so bad...” she floundered and he felt the need to put her out of her misery.

“I get it, Parker,” he assured her, pinching the bridge of his one as if her rambling was set to give him a headache already. “I know, I just... I ain’t like the rest of you,” he admitted as he brought his head up to face them all. “I am so much worse,” he reminded them.

“Really?” asked Nate, gesturing with his glass tumbler as he spoke. “Well, you might have been bad, Eliot, but you were never quite a monster,” he assured him.

“Don’t think you know me, old man, ‘cause you don’t,” said the hitter, his tone just this side of a growl, but Nate never flinched.

He knew there was a softer side to Eliot Spencer and he had no fear when it came to revealing it right now.

.

Nathan Ford was not happy about his latest job. Tracking Eliot Spencer was no tougher than any other thief he had chased cross country over the past few years, but he did have his misgivings about being caught out by this guy. Spencer could handle himself in a fight and no mistake. Not much was known about where he came from, but there were a lot of rumours about where he’d been and what he’d done in his time as a ‘retrieval specialist’. Nate almost hoped he never did manage to catch Spencer, since he had no clue how he would handle him if and when he succeeded in tracking the man down.

It had seemed today would be the day he found out. Though Spencer had the goods, he was not going to make it out of the country with them, not this time. Nate had him cornered at the airport, with armed back up waiting for his command to come in and take the guy out, if necessary. Of course, Nate had no idea that the thief never planned to escape at all, not until it happened.

Nate watched open-mouthed as Eliot Spencer walked confidently through the airport, turning at the last moment into a side room where a woman and child waited. They couldn’t be part of a team, a part of the crime, he was sure, and not just because they looked seemingly innocent. He had met this woman and her daughter, they were the daughter-in-law and grandchild of the couple who had been stolen from and were themselves suspected of the robbery Nate was always sure Spencer had committed.

Through the glass panel in the door, he carefully watched as Eliot handed over a bundle from inside his jacket to the grateful young woman who cried and thanked him, before showing her tiny daughter the prized possession.

It was meant for them, Nate had been sure of that when he met the supposed owners who had shunned their daughter-in-law and grandchild, blaming them for their son’s death, though it had clearly been an unavoidable accident. They tried to keep what was rightfully theirs away from them, and Eliot had played Robin Hood, robbed from the rich to give to the poor.

Nate was speechless. So much for a hardened criminal, a man of violence and no heart, he would almost swear there were tears in Eliot’s eyes as the little girl of no more than six hugged him tight around the neck in thanks for something she would one day better understand.

“Ford, what’s the status of our man?” came a voice in Nate’s ear then as he backed away from the door.

“I lost him,” he said with faked regret. “He got away again.”

.

“Wait a second... You knew about that?” Eliot asked in astonishment just as soon as Nate was done with his story.

The mastermind just nodded his head and watched a light dawn in his hitter’s eyes. He could play the bad guy all he wanted, but Eliot wasn’t evil, not even as bad as the crooked businessman types the team brought down every week nearly. Sure, he had done bad things, and Nate never doubted it, but he had a heart. He couldn’t stand to be around the team and help them out the way he did if he was so very cold.

Eliot was smiling by now, having retaken his seat half way through Nate’s tale, without even realising he’d done it perhaps. How this team had become a weird kind of family so fast was anybody’s guess, he sure as hell didn’t know himself, but he couldn’t quite find a way to hate it like he felt he probably should.

“Okay, so you almost caught me, you almost caught Hardison,” Parker rattled on in the silence that had almost lasted a whole minute. “You know Eliot’s not a really bad guy and you let him get away on purpose too,” she added, as all eyes turned to Nate again. “That just leaves Sophie.”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” said the mastermind with a fond smile at his grifter.

Oh, the tales he could tell, that was what his eyes were saying as he glanced her way then. She dared him to reveal too much with her own look of danger, but she had no real way to stop him.

“Oh, please!” Sophie scoffed as Nate smirked at her as if he were very clever. “You never came that close to catching me, and even if you had, I would not have needed you to let me get away,” she said smartly, folding her arms across her chest.

The others shared knowing looks as Nate fought to urge to chuckle. Sophie did not like to be undermined or have her skills in any way downplayed. She was good at what she did, it was true. Whilst her acting was, without question, absolutely shocking on any normal day, on the grift she was sublime, and could pretty much talk her way out of anything and everything. She had proved that several times over that Nate knew of, and a few hundred more besides, he didn’t doubt it. Of course, he was not about to allow her this, to convince the rest of the team that she was so much better than he was, because it simply wasn’t true.

“You got the upper hand a few times, I’ll give you that.” He nodded along with her.

He remembered the times she had outsmarted him and slipped away, and times when they were more evenly matched. Chief among them he remembered the time they shot each other, and the time they almost got too close. Nate shook his head free of those thoughts immediately, guilt creeping in that he could ill afford right now. He got back on topic after another shot of whiskey passed his lips.

“I think you’re conveniently forgetting Amsterdam,” he said looking from his team to a startled Sophie.

“How does anybody forget Amsterdam?” Parker asked in earnest, but of course she was missing the point, as Nate would quickly explain.

.

It was a classy party, a really swanky affair. Nate had got a ticket by fair means, but he knew the woman he was tracking down had been less honest about her name and line of work. She was across the room from him now, closer than she had ever been on this mad cap trip across Europe. Sophie Devereaux, as elusive as she was beautiful, and that was really saying something. Though he knew she was a criminal, it didn’t stop him admiring her in a way. She was smarter than most thieves, much smarter in fact, perhaps even rivalling himself in intelligence since she was always the one that got away. It had been close, a few times now, their cat and mouse game, but this one would be different, this time he would catch her.

Drinking down his shot of whiskey, Nate turned back to the sea of people dancing and found Sophie was gone. Masquerading as the Princess of some long forgotten colony, she had been dancing with a British Duke just a moment ago and now she had vanished.

“Hello, Mr Ford,” said a voice beside him and when Nate turned again he found the very woman he was looking for stood right there beside him in her flowing silver sparkling gown and tiara.

“So formal, Miss Devereaux,” he played her at her own game, watching her expression shift momentarily to panic as he addressed her by a name no-one else here would recognise.

“Fine, Nathan,” she replied quickly. “Have it your way.” She smiled falsely at a couple as they passed by. “I’m actually quite impressed that you found me again.”

“You might not be quite so impressed when I don’t let you get away this time,” he told her, taking her unawares as his fingers wrapped around her own and pulled her towards the dancefloor.

Sophie went on instinct more than by design as she found herself turning into the arms of Nathan Ford, and then they were dancing and she couldn’t help but smile about it. He chased her all over the world and never quite caught her, she always managed to get away at the last moment, even if a part of her almost wished he would catch her for all he wrong reasons. Sophie Devereaux didn’t want to go to jail, far from it, but she’d trade half her collection of stolen wonders for a chance to be with Nathan Ford. She sometimes wondered if he knew, if their flirting meant anything to him as it did to her. She who had so much nerve in all things didn’t dare ask that one question.

“You plan to catch me by spinning me around the floor until I fall over?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye that made him smile too.

“No.” He shook his head slightly. “I plan to dance with you, and tell you look beautiful, just because...”

“Just because?” she echoed as she met his eyes, wondering again if he knew how she felt, if he could feel the same.

He was a married man, they both had to remind themselves of that, as their dancing slowed to barely any movement at all, and their eyes remained locked on each other.

“Excuse me,” said a voice as a tap came on Nate’s shoulder. “May a cut in?” asked a smooth Italian that Nate was too startled by to really identify.

“You may indeed, sir.” Sophie smiled brightly, painting on another mask as she was danced out of Nate’s arms and across the floor.

Nathan Ford watched her be spun and twirled, laughing giddily like a girl half her age. He had meant what he said, she really was beautiful, enough to turn his head, but that wasn’t what was really attractimg him. It was her intelligence and her wit coupled with that beauty and sexual attraction that had him hooked. Perhaps it was the danger too, a hint of being the forbidden fruit that made him want to forget who he was as easily as she could, and run away with her into the night. It was becoming more and more difficult to ignore how she could make him feel. With everything going on at home, he should try harder to be faithful, a good husband and father. His desires were nothing in comparison to what he might yet lose.

A quick call to the bosses had Nate on a flight home and a different IYS agent on the tail of Sophie Devereaux when she skipped out of Holland and into the next place she would screw for all it was worth. Nathan Ford couldn’t be the one to chase her anymore, for fear he would soon be the one caught.

.

“I had no idea.” Sophie smiled, almost blushing actually Nate noticed as he looked at her. “But you weren’t really tempted, I mean, not seriously, not back then.”

“I was.” He nodded, turning away at the same time she ducked her face behind her hair.

It was only then either of them realised they were alone, save for a scrap of paper on the table beside them. Eliot’s surprisingly neat handwriting told them briefly he had taken the other two out for ice-cream and they’d be back soon. Nate smiled only because he was amused by the concept of the hitter taking Hardison and Parker out as if they were kids and he their hard done by baby-sitter or older brother perhaps. They certainly were like family more often than they weren’t these days.

“If they’re going to be the kids, I guess that makes us Mum and Dad.” Sophie smiled as if she had read the thoughts from Nate’s head, or maybe he had spoken aloud without meaning too.

The expression slid from the grifter’s lips when she realised what she had really said and what damage it could have done. Parents and children, they were still dodgy topics around Nate and understandably so given the circumstances. It was because of Maggie and Sam that nothing had ever happened between Sophie and Nate in the old days, though apparently she had been enough to make him think about straying. Sophie wasn’t sure whether to be flattered and proud or feel bad and dirty for almost stealing him away. He was the man of her dreams somehow, though she hadn’t always realised it. Now he was free to be claimed and yet there was so much water under the bridge, and so much more still to be washed through.

“I’m just going to...” she excused herself from the table and Nate didn’t pay much mind to where she went - the bathroom, her office, it didn’t matter right now.

Nate’s mind was a million miles away from the present, and in somewhat less pleasant territory than it had been so far today. Talking about his past life in terms of his job came easy with these people because they understood. Thinking now about that time from another angle, of Maggie and Sam and the losses he had suffered, that was a black place to go and not to be shared with anyone, not even Sophie.

She was wrong about him never being tempted by her and she ought to have known it. Perhaps it was easier for her to believe she had no part in breaking up a marriage but it wasn’t quite true. Sam’s illness and subsequent passing was only the final straw, his work had already become a factor in the break up his marriage would suffer. It was coming apart at the seams for a very long time.

.

Nathan Ford could think of nowhere he would rather be than here with his son. Sure, building things out of Lego was only so thrilling in its basic sense, but watching Sam as he figured out how to do things, how to make the pieces become what his imagination had conjured up, it was a wonderful thing.

Maybe he would be an engineer one day, perhaps an architect. So long as he was happy Nate didn’t really mind, but a little success and a career to be proud of would be nice too.

Sam yawned heartily, leaning heavy on his father’s shoulder as he tried to fix on the last few bricks of his latest creation. He was beyond tired all of a sudden, and it wasn’t even his bedtime.

“C’mon, champ,” he said, nudging the boys shoulder so he moved enough for Nate himself to get to his feet. “Time to call it a night,” he added as he scooped his son up easily and carried him to his room.

“’M not sleepy,” he mumbled, even though it was clear he was half way gone already.

He sleep walked through teeth-brushing and Nate pretty much had to put the poor kid in his pyjamas a piece at a time, since Sam really wasn’t capable of co-operating. It was becoming a problem lately, how tired he was becoming for no reason, the way he seemed thinner no matter how much they tried to get him to eat. Another trip to the doctor would be in order, Maggie had already mentioned it.

“Sleep tight, son,” said Nate with a fond smile as he planted a kiss on the little boy’s forehead.

There would be no story tonight, be it some fairytale from a book, or one of Daddy’s own made up cat-and-mouse adventures based on reality. Tonight was for Sam to sleep as much as possible and feel better come morning.

Nate flipped out the light and headed back to the living room just as his wife appeared with her brief case in one hand and Chinese food in the other.

“I’m sorry I’m late... Is Sam already in bed?” she checked, dropping her voice to a whisper when she realised it.

“Yeah.” Her husband nodded, running his hands over his face and back through his hair. “Did you make that doctor's appointment?” he checked.

“For Tuesday.” Maggie nodded a she flopped down on the couch beside him. “Although if work carries on like this I think I’ll need a doctor too.” She yawned as she leaned into him.

He knew that feeling. Everything was so draining lately, especially where work was concerned.He felt like he hardly saw Maggie anymore, like they were drifting apart, and yet on some level he felt that he didn’t care as much as perhaps he should, at least, not when he was chasing a certain thief around.

“Nate?” Maggie tried again when she realised her husband hadn’t heard a word she’s said. “Are you okay?” she checked.

“Sure, I’m fine,” he told her with a smile, leaning in to kiss her lips.

“Hmm.” She sighed. “Maybe we could skip dinner, have an early night too?” she suggested with a look that spoke volumes as she moved to kiss him again.

Nate felt guilty as hell when he kissed her back, closing his eyes and seeing Sophie Devereaux there instead. Maggie was his wife, a fine woman that he loved to no end, and yet lately his mind started to wander. He was faithful in reality, always a good and true husband, but in his head he had cheated more than once.

“Is something wrong?” asked Maggie and Nate opened his mouth to answer her before realising her voice was off.

.

“Nate? Is something wrong?” Sophie repeated as she returned to his side and jostled his shoulder.

He had seemed to be in a complete world of his own, and she swore there were tears in his eyes now she had returned to him. Sure, she brought up painful memories, but he never got quite so lost in them. Perhaps she had done more damage than she thought today.

“No,” he said eventually, reaching to take the hand that slid down his arm. “No, I’m fine,” he promised her, even if the tone was unconvincing and the smile was weak.

Sophie started to tell him how Hardison just called to ask if they wanted any ice-cream bringing back and to say that Eliot was being a buzz kill, because he suggested Parker should have a fruit-based dessert instead of something with so much chocolate. Nate nodded along and was even listening enough to laugh at how ridiculous the situation seemed.

The truth was he couldn’t stop his mind whirring on all by itself. He had come a long way from the life he used to have, and he had thought back then that nothing could be better than having a wife and child and a high-paid Insurance Investigators job. It had been a happy time, a happy place, and he hadn’t wanted it to change. When the worst began to happen, when Sam got sick and died, when Maggie left, when he walked away from IYS and turned to drink, Nate never thought he would be happy again, and yet here he was. Within minutes he was smiling at a group of team-mates that had fast become friends, perhaps even family.

Maybe this was what was supposed to happen. Perhaps Nathan Ford had to go through all the trials his life had been made up of so far to get to this point, here with this group of people, doing what they did. He was never supposed to catch them, the fates had a plan to keep them all free and bring them all together like this, to do good, of course, but also to be what each other needed, the family they did not have for real.

Nate realised that these people were supposed to slip through his fingers in his old life so that they could be here in his new one. In the end, he had caught them all, albeit in a very different way to that which he originally intended. Now they were all here in his grasp, they were his family in the oddest sense, and for reasons he could never explain, he never wanted to let any of them go ever again.


End file.
